Google Analytics Events that lead to Goals (conversions)

[SmileMoreSEO]

Hello!

I'm in the process of setting up Events in Google Analytics to track the performance of banner ads on our site. While that will take care of the action performed by the visitor (i.e. the click on the banner), it doesn't tell me if the visitor ultimately completed the form where the banner ad directs them (which is set up as one of out site's Goals).

Once the Event is in place, will I be able to track the Goal  conversions that it leads to? It's nice that Events will tell me which banner drove someone to the form, but if I'm not able to see if that Event led to a Goal conversion it seems like something will be missing.

So, is this something that's already available within Goals or Events reporting, or is there an additional step I need to take?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Erik

[Vacatia_SEO]

Thanks for the great workaround.

One question: If you set up a profile that filters out virtual pageviews from the real traffic, won't you also be filtering out the goals that those virtual pageviews represent?

[SmileMoreSEO]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the feedback.

Ugh... this is turning into a monster. There are 90+ pages that need one of these banner ads, one for each doctor on our website. The banner ad will encourage the site visitor to request an appointment.

Knowing what you know, is it worthwhile to create a separate Event for each doctor's banner ad (with their name as the Event label) or should I just use one Event for all of these banners?

If it's worthwhile to create a unique Event for each doctor, I'm not sure I follow your "virtual page" concept above. Can you explain?

I know the Goal Flow subsection under Conversions has an "Event Label" option. Wouldn't that show me the conversions that go to my Goals? (And yes, the goal conversion in question here is the thank you page for the Request an Appointment page.)

Thanks again for your sharing your expertise. I greatly appreciate it.

Take care,
Erik

[marymerritt]

After reading Paul's response, I wanted to clarify that the report I've outlined won't give you the traditional "funnel" view that he's described. If the user happens to click on all of your banners before submitting the form, you will still see a goal attributed to each of your events, instead of just the most recent one.

Given that it seems like a pretty straightforward scenario - your user clicks a banner, and then fills in a form - the custom report may still be valuable enough to consider. It is a little dangerous to assume that an event caused a goal completion (like in my example, I can't necessarily assume an interaction with a product video sold a product), but in your case it seems really straightforward.

[marymerritt]

This should be possible using a custom report.

You'll want to add "goal completions" as the metric - or a specific goal's completions (form submissions, in your case).

You'll want to add all 3 "event" dimensions. I've attached a screen shot example for help!

This should give you a report that shows how many goal submissions have been "caused" by each event (banner clicks, in your case).

I've used this type of report in the past to show clients how visitor interactions with videos and on-site search boxes correlates with revenue and goals.

Please let me know if this gets you what you're hoping to see!

wLlgm4S.jpg

[ThompsonPaul]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, Erik, but Google Analytics isn't quite able to do what you want to do in this situation, at least in its regular configuration.

What you're looking to do is to create a goal funnel, which is a way to specify and monitor the steps a user would take to get to the desired end result. Analytics just doesn't provide this capability for Events, unfortunately.

However! There is a workaround (actually going back to the old way of doing things). You can use event tracking to create a virtual page view when the banner is clicked. This "virtual" page can then be set as the first page in the goal funnel; you can then specify the remaining pages as usual leading to the completion of the form. (The form submit will have to lead to a thank-you/confirmation page or equivalent, otherwise you'll need have the form submit button generate a new virtual page view as well.)

The critical thing to remember when doing this is that these virtual page views will be counted as traffic. You'll need to set up View (profile) filters to remove those pageviews from the "real" traffic. I always recommend setting up a test view (profile) so you can experiment to get things right before applying to your working View.

Does all that makes sense?

Paul